Chinese semiconductor thread II

[tphuang]

@tonyget I would suggest that you stop writing these posts in a manner that put China' semiconductor industry because it's causing huge argument right now which is taking attention away from the more relevant part of the story, which is confirmation of which parts come from which suppliers.

This argument about how many gen and years behind SMIC is really isn't all that useful here.

I'm going to delete any further posts on that type of argument.

Please continue discussing the actual findings that we didn't know about rather than get into another nationalistic ranting

 

[tphuang]

Picking some interesting part from the tear down's

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(just 2 pictures here, the others are on the link)
View attachment 129319
View attachment 129320


We can see that the only non mainland China suppliers are Taiwan's

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for battery charger, Bosch for accelerometer & gyroscope and SK Hynix for DRAM.

The RF front-end IC are marked HiSilicon, but it would be interesting to know who is the foundry and also who are the suppliers of the SAW/BAW filters, PA amplifiers and all the other front end analog stuff.

All in all an impressive supply chain engineering effort by Huawei. I'm not sure people understand what it means to raise a whole bunch of new suppliers to world-class flagship product level.

IMO this is the biggest contribution of Huawei to China.

Regarding memory, I don't fully buy this narrative of SK Hynix DRAM chips still from 2020 stockpile...anyhow I have no data here. I just have some doubts....maybe HW still has some old DRAM chip to use at product launch, when specialized firms get their sample to tear-down. I think we will hear more on that in the future...

Anyhow DRAM IC in this sample is confirmed to be like in the Mate 60, the H58GG6MK6G LPDDR5-6400, still not a LPDDR5X....we are well in CXMT territory. That SK Hynix chip can turn into a CXMT quite quickly if needed.

Regarding the tear-down, this firm IFixit, does not have the advanced instrumentation to perform a deep chip analysis at transistor level. That's why they have no clues about NAND and the other HiSilicon chips. TechInsights has the instrumentation, but for some reason their analysis has been classified.

Thanks for posting this.

Probably the most relevant post here. I'd agree with they are able to source SK DRAM chips through third party. As long as it is the regular LPDDR5, it probably isn't too difficult. CXMT likely is still ramping up production and is keeping its cooperation with Huawei on the low to not attract attention.

The really interesting stuff here is all the analog chips that use Chinese suppliers now as well as RF chips and presumably 3d NAND. I'd assume Nand is by YMTC.

I would not be surprised if Huawei is making it's own SAW/BAW filters. Or it could be sourcing them logically and packaging in its own power amplifier modules

 

[tphuang]

SMIC Q1 result is out, higher revenue, higher cost and lower margins. much higher depreciation from increased capex

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1788565589264322789

 

[european_guy]

SMIC Q1 result is out, higher revenue, higher cost and lower margins. much higher depreciation from increased capex

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1788565589264322789

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8-inch equivalent wafer shipment increased by 7% sequentially to 1,795 thousand; and
utilization rate increased by 4 percentage points sequentially to 80.8%

1.795M wafers shipped is for a 3 months period so, with 80.8% utilization we have:

Capacity Q1 2024 = 740K wpm 8" equivalent

It was 805K wpm 8" equivalent in Q3 2024

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This seems a huge drop in capacity of 30K wpm at 12" equivalent.

 

[jli88]

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1.795M wafers shipped is for a 3 months period so, with 80.8% utilization we have:

Capacity Q1 2024 = 740K wpm 8" equivalent

It was 805K wpm 8" equivalent in Q3 2024

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This seems a huge drop in capacity of 30K wpm at 12" equivalent.

This is from the report


Also, from the report

 

[gotodistance]

Chinese-made GPU beats performance of 10-year-old integrated AMD graphics — Lingjiu GP201 hits mass production​

it has begun mass-production and is available for purchase in China.

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[tokenanalyst]

Guangli Micro (Semitronix): Continue to look for merger and acquisition opportunities, and the proportion of EDA software business revenue will increase significantly in the future​

Hangzhou Guangli Microelectronics Co., Ltd. held the 2023 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to discuss the "Proposal on the 2023 Board of Directors Work Report" ", "Proposal on the Work Report of the Board of Supervisors for 2023" and other nine proposals were reviewed and voted on. As an institutional shareholder, Aijiwei participated in the meeting on-site and voted in favor of the relevant proposals.

Guangliwei released its 2023 annual report stating that during the reporting period, the company achieved operating income of 477.6158 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.31%, and realized a net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company of 128.8032 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.30%. Shareholders' non-net profit was 109.9458 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.09%.

Guangli Micro is a leading domestic supplier of integrated circuit EDA software and wafer-level electrical testing equipment. The company focuses on improving chip yield and rapid electrical testing monitoring technology. It is the preferred choice of many large integrated circuit manufacturing and design companies at home and abroad. Important partners. Guangli Micro provides EDA software, circuit IP, WAT test equipment and full-process solutions combined with chip yield improvement technology to achieve chip performance, yield and stability throughout the entire product cycle of integrated circuits from design to mass production. improvement. Guangli Micro's advanced solutions have been successfully applied to many integrated circuit process technology nodes, achieving high-quality domestic substitution and breaking the long-term monopoly of foreign products in the field of integrated circuit yield improvement.

For such a multi-line development business model that combines hardware and software collaboration, Guangliwei told Aijiwei that the revenue share of EDA software business will increase significantly in the future compared with 2023.

Continue to look for merger and acquisition opportunities

During the reporting period, Guangli Micro purchased 43% of the equity of Shanghai Yiruixin Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. with its own funds, and incorporated Yiruixin into the company's consolidated statements. Yiruixin is a company specializing in integrated circuit testability. An enterprise whose main business is design (DFT) technical services and product development. This equity acquisition marks the first step for the company to expand from focusing on manufacturing EDA to designing EDA.

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[tokenanalyst]

Hua Hong Semiconductor’s 2024 first quarter report: Capacity utilization rate exceeded 91.7%, accelerating production expansion to welcome the upward cycle​

Hua Hong Semiconductor disclosed its first quarter report for 2024. Data shows that the company achieved sales revenue of US$460 million in the first quarter of 2024, a month-on-month increase of 1.0%, in line with the company's previous expected guidance; the gross profit margin was 6.4%, a month-on-month increase of 2.4 percentage points, higher than the previous expected guidance.

After two years of low operating conditions, institutions generally believe that the semiconductor industry will enter an upward cycle in 2024, and both market demand and chip prices are expected to rise steadily. Judging from the first quarter report, Hua Hong Semiconductor is not only strengthening its technical reserves, but also steadily advancing production capacity expansion, fully preparing for downstream recovery.

The quality and efficiency of output are crucial to foundry companies, so technology research and development is also an important driving force for the development of Hua Hong Semiconductor. For a long time, the company has continued to increase investment in the development of new technologies and new processes. In the first quarter of 2024, the company's research and development expenses were nearly 348 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.73%. According to the announcement, the company's R&D investment in the first quarter increased by 2.96 percentage points to 10.55% from the same period last year, showing a continued growth trend.

At the same time, Hua Hong Semiconductor has also steadily promoted the increase in production capacity scale and utilization rate. As of the end of the first quarter, the company's 8-inch monthly production capacity reached 391,000 pieces, and the total capacity utilization rate was 91.7%, an increase of 7.6 percentage points from the previous quarter.

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[tphuang]

Hua Hong Semiconductor’s 2024 first quarter report: Capacity utilization rate exceeded 91.7%, accelerating production expansion to welcome the upward cycle​

Hua Hong Semiconductor disclosed its first quarter report for 2024. Data shows that the company achieved sales revenue of US$460 million in the first quarter of 2024, a month-on-month increase of 1.0%, in line with the company's previous expected guidance; the gross profit margin was 6.4%, a month-on-month increase of 2.4 percentage points, higher than the previous expected guidance.

After two years of low operating conditions, institutions generally believe that the semiconductor industry will enter an upward cycle in 2024, and both market demand and chip prices are expected to rise steadily. Judging from the first quarter report, Hua Hong Semiconductor is not only strengthening its technical reserves, but also steadily advancing production capacity expansion, fully preparing for downstream recovery.

The quality and efficiency of output are crucial to foundry companies, so technology research and development is also an important driving force for the development of Hua Hong Semiconductor. For a long time, the company has continued to increase investment in the development of new technologies and new processes. In the first quarter of 2024, the company's research and development expenses were nearly 348 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.73%. According to the announcement, the company's R&D investment in the first quarter increased by 2.96 percentage points to 10.55% from the same period last year, showing a continued growth trend.

At the same time, Hua Hong Semiconductor has also steadily promoted the increase in production capacity scale and utilization rate. As of the end of the first quarter, the company's 8-inch monthly production capacity reached 391,000 pieces, and the total capacity utilization rate was 91.7%, an increase of 7.6 percentage points from the previous quarter.

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Look at the very low profit margin here also. Hh is also going through very high capex growth for its size due to move into 40nm segment

 

[european_guy]

This is from the report
View attachment 129335

Also, from the report

View attachment 129336

Thanks for point it out, but there is something not clear.

Here is the full screenshot you posted:



See the last note: utilization rate = total wafer / quarterly capacity

If capacity is 815K wpm X 3 months = 2445K and total wafer is 1795K it means, according to note(1)

utilization rate = 1795K / 2445K = 73%

But they calculated an utilization rate of 80.8%.

....maybe capacity is intended as capacity at the end of the quarter, they increased capacity along the quarter. But in this case the note(1) is not clear at all, because to calculate utilization rate they use the wafer shipped along the whole quarter and so they should use average capacity in the quarter, not capacity at the end of the quarter.